... beyond the enjoyment of the actual combat and flight mechanics, but i hope thats a bit of a "duh" for everyone :V

Exactly. Combat doesn't need to have consequences to "be fun". It's fun because it is enjoyable as an activity. If the combat is super boring or clunky then I would agree that something needs to be added to make me interested, and perhaps raised stakes could do that. Hopefully that isn't the case in LT.

Why does something have to have consequences to be fun?
Playing LT has no consequences, so it can't be fun. We have to implement something that kills you IRL when you die in LT, only then will the game be fun

Why does something have to have consequences to be fun?
Playing LT has no consequences, so it can't be fun. We have to implement something that kills you IRL when you die in LT, only then will the game be fun

Thats a "philosophical" question: Do you have fun when playing a sandbox game in godmode/creative mode?
Or do you have more fun if you can loose things?

LT is a sandbox game. Thats a big difference to a scripted linear/open game with dedicated missions and "levels".
In games with scripted restrictions, i approve of a full save/load system, as the player should not have to redo long passages of predefined content.

But in a sandbox game, where nothing is scripted, but emerging from the players actions and that of the AI. Its better to have a "creative" mode (no problem for save/load here), and a "survival" mode (not being allow to reload and "redo" enhances the gameplay, as it makes the player care more about his actions)

Also: that does not mean saving should be restricted .. just that you will always continue at you LAST save, and exiting the game will save your current state.
So the player can quit the game at any time, but will always continue at the last state. (plus one "inconveniently" renamed previous savegame to recover from actual gameplay bugs)

That's not the same thing. Having loading and saving has nothing to do with creative/godmode or survival mode.
And I don't really see what being a sandbox has to do with wanting saves - because yes, I want not having to redo hours of gameplay, regardless of whether it's predefined or sandbox. And no, I don't need death to have consequences to have fun, sandbox or not.

But in a sandbox game, where nothing is scripted, but emerging from the players actions and that of the AI. Its better to have a "creative" mode (no problem for save/load here), and a "survival" mode (not being allow to reload and "redo" enhances the gameplay, as it makes the player care more about his actions)

Also: that does not mean saving should be restricted .. just that you will always continue at you LAST save, and exiting the game will save your current state.
So the player can quit the game at any time, but will always continue at the last state. (plus one "inconveniently" renamed previous savegame to recover from actual gameplay bugs)

to phrase it politely: touch my ability to load/save outside of an explicitly marked iron man mode and you will regret the day you started thinking about doing so

Nobody has the slightest right to force me to play the "right" way.

What if i want to explore the statespace i could have reached from a specific position?
i'll Save before an "fight A or B" decision and replay the other possibility tree from there.
I dont need a godmode cheat tool for that being an interesting decision, and exploring statespace is still exploration.

Why would you cut free load/save in a game mode thats not just unlimited god mode?
Why am i not allowed to experiment with limited resources?
Why should i conform to your idea on how to handle my RL interaction with the game universe?

I feel like we are making this more difficult than it needs to be. It's a single player game, so just have options. People can play at the skill level they want to play at. Easiest would be to have some common modes to choose from upon universe creation:

Exploration Mode: Upon ship explosion, respawn with ship at nearest shipyard, no loss of assets or anything, fairly straight forward, gameplay in this mode is more about flying around care free, taking in the sights, and blindly ignoring the risk of pirates and the threat they pose.

Normal: Upon ship explosion, ship is lost, respawn at shipyard/colony (wherever you have access to a new ship) If you don't have another new ship to go into, "Life Insurance" kicks in and grants you 10,000 credits, enough to buy a basic shuttle to get you back on your feet. If you have another ship, you will be put at the station it was closest to at the time of your death and the ship will be docked there ready to take you, unless you own a station, in which case you will be re-spawned there. If you don't have another ship, but you have over 10,000 credits, you don't receive life insurance, and are put at a shipyard with access to the basic shuttle.

Ironman: Upon ship explosion, your player is lost, any ships, assets, and credits will be gone, and you will respawn in the system you began in. The universe will be the same, you will just be different. Any assets or faction you may have had will still exist in the universe, but they will now be under the control of an AI NPC (your assistant took your place or something..) You are essentially starting fresh, but any kind of progress you had made or changes you had accomplished within the universe are still there, but your new character has nothing to do with them.

I feel like you could definitely expand on each of those to have a couple different variations, but I feel like it's a good start that puts everyone into the gameplay mode they may prefer. This is a single player game, there is no reason to punish people to play differently. There aren't any leaderboards, people should be able to play the game as they want, whether as an undying god, or a one life challenge.

As for the saving, I feel like it's an entirely different discussion and has nothing to do with the death system. Just make saving available anywhere. If people want to "save scum" or whatever the hell people called it in this thread, so be it? Why does that bother people? It has zero affect on your own game, and is just a quality of life feature. Some people have kids, or various other "distractions" that may pull them away from a game quickly. Having to spend a couple minutes escaping combat, or flying somewhere to save is just an annoying hassle and frustration. This is a game, meant to be enjoyed by all, use the different modes to challenge yourself, saving and loading is a convenience, and if you want to use it as a playstyle, that is also your choice to make. If people still for whatever reason have their panties in a knot, change ironman to overwrite saves and only allow one save, which is a fairly common theme of ironman's one life system, but people always find a way around that by just copying the save out of the folder and making a new save. Again, single player game here fellas, the death penalty shouldn't be a complicated discussion, just make it something that has options for all play styles.

Ironman: Upon ship explosion, your player is lost, any ships, assets, and credits will be gone, and you will respawn in the system you began in. The universe will be the same, you will just be different. Any assets or faction you may have had will still exist in the universe, but they will now be under the control of an AI NPC (your assistant took your place or something..) You are essentially starting fresh, but any kind of progress you had made or changes you had accomplished within the universe are still there, but your new character has nothing to do with them.

I feel like you could definitely expand on each of those to have a couple different variations, but I feel like it's a good start that puts everyone into the gameplay mode they may prefer. This is a single player game, there is no reason to punish people to play differently. There aren't any leaderboards, people should be able to play the game as they want, whether as an undying god, or a one life challenge.

As for the saving, I feel like it's an entirely different discussion and has nothing to do with the death system. Just make saving available anywhere. If people want to "save scum" or whatever the hell people called it in this thread, so be it? Why does that bother people? It has zero affect on your own game, and is just a quality of life feature. Some people have kids, or various other "distractions" that may pull them away from a game quickly. Having to spend a couple minutes escaping combat, or flying somewhere to save is just an annoying hassle and frustration. This is a game, meant to be enjoyed by all, use the different modes to challenge yourself, saving and loading is a convenience, and if you want to use it as a playstyle, that is also your choice to make. If people still for whatever reason have their panties in a knot, change ironman to overwrite saves and only allow one save, which is a fairly common theme of ironman's one life system, but people always find a way around that by just copying the save out of the folder and making a new save. Again, single player game here fellas, the death penalty shouldn't be a complicated discussion, just make it something that has options for all play styles.

I've never seen a system called 'ironman' that is permadeath. Permadeath modes do however tend to be ironman.

The question is about the intended base playing style of the game. What should be the normal mode, and what variations on that should be found within the game.

Also, the issue with your suggestion of respawning /in/ a ship is that it necessitates a player-centric view of your assets. I.e. that your ships are available in station at all times (Like having extra lives) rather than out actually doing things.

And that, is my primary issue with death. How do you handle it if you make the actual player character die (Logistically)? Their ships will be out doing stuff and if you've constrained them to a physical body you're left with them having to buy a ship every time they die to get back to their fleet. I personally still think that a player without a body (i.e. more RTS player-y) is a better idea, since on death it's essentially just the ship that dies and the player could simply direct control another one.

Ironman: Upon ship explosion, your player is lost, any ships, assets, and credits will be gone, and you will respawn in the system you began in. The universe will be the same, you will just be different. Any assets or faction you may have had will still exist in the universe, but they will now be under the control of an AI NPC (your assistant took your place or something..) You are essentially starting fresh, but any kind of progress you had made or changes you had accomplished within the universe are still there, but your new character has nothing to do with them.

I feel like you could definitely expand on each of those to have a couple different variations, but I feel like it's a good start that puts everyone into the gameplay mode they may prefer. This is a single player game, there is no reason to punish people to play differently. There aren't any leaderboards, people should be able to play the game as they want, whether as an undying god, or a one life challenge.

As for the saving, I feel like it's an entirely different discussion and has nothing to do with the death system. Just make saving available anywhere. If people want to "save scum" or whatever the hell people called it in this thread, so be it? Why does that bother people? It has zero affect on your own game, and is just a quality of life feature. Some people have kids, or various other "distractions" that may pull them away from a game quickly. Having to spend a couple minutes escaping combat, or flying somewhere to save is just an annoying hassle and frustration. This is a game, meant to be enjoyed by all, use the different modes to challenge yourself, saving and loading is a convenience, and if you want to use it as a playstyle, that is also your choice to make. If people still for whatever reason have their panties in a knot, change ironman to overwrite saves and only allow one save, which is a fairly common theme of ironman's one life system, but people always find a way around that by just copying the save out of the folder and making a new save. Again, single player game here fellas, the death penalty shouldn't be a complicated discussion, just make it something that has options for all play styles.

I've never seen a system called 'ironman' that is permadeath. Permadeath modes do however tend to be ironman.

The question is about the intended base playing style of the game. What should be the normal mode, and what variations on that should be found within the game.

Also, the issue with your suggestion of respawning /in/ a ship is that it necessitates a player-centric view of your assets. I.e. that your ships are available in station at all times (Like having extra lives) rather than out actually doing things.

And that, is my primary issue with death. How do you handle it if you make the actual player character die (Logistically)? Their ships will be out doing stuff and if you've constrained them to a physical body you're left with them having to buy a ship every time they die to get back to their fleet. I personally still think that a player without a body (i.e. more RTS player-y) is a better idea, since on death it's essentially just the ship that dies and the player could simply direct control another one.

Ironman in games is, to my understanding, one save (meaning it overwrites and saves as time goes on using autosave), permanent actions, permanent loss. Permadeath would fall under that, as you can't reload to get a character or thing back. So, I would argue permadeath is a system of ironman, not the other way around, but either way, you can call it permadeath if you want, doesn't really change the idea I have put forward, it's just semantics really.

As for the intended style, I was under the impression that the game is more focused around a player with RTS elements versus an RTS with interactable ships. But, I could be totally wrong. A couple things have changed since the kickstarter after all and I'm beginning to not remember what's what.

I think you're also misunderstanding my "respawning" system. What I mean by it is similar in the way that EVE handles it, so if we want, we can call it a clone instead of a respawn. As for the ship just being at the station, I should have gone into more detail, (my bad) in my head it would be that a short duration of time has passed in the simulation for the ship to arrive at the station your "clone" is at, to pick you up. Travel time and all, plus clones may not grow overnight! You could maybe even select the ship you want to pick you up, and that could change what station you are reborn/regrown at. Then the AI of that ship would basically hand the reigns over to you once it arrived at the station (which would be "instant" to the player, as the travelling would go on in the background while you respawn/load the system on your computer.) This also means that the AI that has joined your faction, is piloting your ship, created relationships and reputation with other AI, and obtained an identity itself in the universe, doesn't just disappear when you die. Josh mentioned crews at one point, so the AI could chill on your ship till you get another, or hang out in the station it picked you up at. I don't think "robots" are piloting the ships we own, I thought it was individual AI with names that have joined up with you or you have "hired" to your fleet/faction/empire, but I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time...

I suggested that because of the logistics it creates behind it as well. I don't think there should be an actual rendered body or physical person you can see; one feature I disliked in several games was when they made you leave your ship and spend time walking around a station to do anything with the station (just so damn time consuming.) The "player" is just a mind, no body involved, but I think there should be some form of "physicality" to the player in terms of how they traverse between all their assets. Jumping into a random ship in the middle of nowhere 20 systems away whenever you want or after you have died takes a lot of the personal aspect out of the game in my opinion, and turns it more into an RTS with ships and objects you can interact with and pilot, instead of a world that the player explores using their ships and objects. ...If that makes sense? But if you really want that, I shouldn't be able to say it's the wrong way to play, so we could also just add that to my suggestion of the exploration mode; immediate ship swapping.

Also, maybe all of this will be handled by mods, so the community will decide how death can work if they want to...

Anyways, I guess the only difference between my examples of Normal mode and Ironman are the fact that in ironman (or permadeath, whatever) mode, you have essentially lost ownership of all your assets, whereas in normal, you keep ownership of all other assets, but the ship you were piloting is lost. Cloning and being regrown versus just being reborn; they both keep the history of the universe, but one you could be reading about your own stunts and accomplishments from a now different "habitant" of the universe, while the first you still are that same person.

Ironman in games is, to my understanding, one save (meaning it overwrites and saves as time goes on using autosave), permanent actions, permanent loss. Permadeath would fall under that, as you can't reload to get a character or thing back. So, I would argue permadeath is a system of ironman, not the other way around, but either way, you can call it permadeath if you want, doesn't really change the idea I have put forward, it's just semantics really.

Anyways, I guess the only difference between my examples of Normal mode and Ironman are the fact that in ironman (or permadeath, whatever) mode, you have essentially lost ownership of all your assets, whereas in normal, you keep ownership of all other assets, but the ship you were piloting is lost. Cloning and being regrown versus just being reborn; they both keep the history of the universe, but one you could be reading about your own stunts and accomplishments from a now different "habitant" of the universe, while the first you still are that same person.

That's again, not ironman.

Ironman /is/ a single save and is not meant to be reloaded, but it is not necessarily a perma-death where you only live once essentially.

Personally I'm interested in the former but not the latter. It's too restricting and essentially means you aren't really playing the game, you're just hiding while the AI plays for you. At least, that's what permadeath ends up making me do.

Permadeath could be an interesting mechanic for story telling but otherwise I don't think it's great for gameplay.